Unlike hers, yours isn't bionic
by NomDuClavier
Summary: Even the nights before, Broyles hates himself, always. A series of Shoyles drabbles as inspired by the excellent Lolita Tides. Nina Sharp, Phillip Broyles
1. Same regrets in the morning

To quote my Homie Lo: "I love the Nina Sharp/Broyles ship because it's so fucking weird". Amen to that.

**Chapter Title:** Same regrets in the morning  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles  
**POV:** Broyles  
**Genres:** Horror? Just kidding.  
**Spoilers:** None, really. Can take place any time, any place.  
**Warnings:** Weird  
**Challenges:** Flashfic Friday!  
**Dedication:** Lolita Tides a.k.a. Captain Lo a.k.a. Lo-Sequence  
**Word count:** 500

* * *

You see Nina walk to her car and intercept her before she can close the door, taking care not to crush your arm; unlike hers, yours isn't bionic.

She's always so damned direct, it's hard to get one past her. "I would say 'What a surprise, Phillip!', hadn't I expected you. What took you so long?"

Her opening statement in this dance of yours is therefore - like your approach to her - no surprise. In another life we could've been legal eagles, she the high-priced defense lawyer, me the underpaid district attorney. As your inner monologue plays on while you answer her, you find this situation isn't all that different from your hypothetical one. "Hello Nina."

You're both on different sides of the law. You're basically the good guy that does shady things to keep the bad guys from doing worse. And she, she's... you're not entirely certain what she is, but of one thing you are certain: she's not likely to win the Nobel peace prize any time soon. So yes, both your moral codes are as warped as is The Pattern, but you were taught to fight fire with fire - even though it's not by-the-book – and the embers still burn hot from last time.

You know it's wrong, but you can't help it; just like you can't help ragging on Dunham about the need to play by the rules when you know you've broken them time and again. If there are no rules in DHS's playbook about this, you know there should be, just as you know you'll break them. Damn that woman and her poisonous ways, if you were a House fan – and you are, although the tough agent in you would never admit to watching a medical drama -, you'd say she was your Vicodin: bitter, numbs the pain of your hollow existence, yet ultimately addictive.

"You can get in," she says with a smirk, knowing just how addictive she is to you, how wrong, how satisfying. You know she knows this because you're her catnip, and you know it. You've been dancing this dance for hours, months, years now, and every so often one of you breaks. The first one to call the other unrelated to business, the two of you even have a code word for it, of sorts.

You curse yourself for calling her two hours ago, "Any word on the side pattern, Nina?" You might as well come out and say it, "I'd like a dish of Nina, with a side order of Sharp," even though it would cut your tongue. "11, Sharp?" Not all that much better, you admit to yourself as you take your seat next to her.

Neither of you speaks, it's not why you met, and acknowledging it by talking – even something unrelated – only makes it that more real. The surroundings aren't of interest to you as they pass you by, you know where you're going; always the same hotel, same room, same regrets in the morning.

* * *

Assuming you made it this far, care to share your survivor's story?


	2. Fringe benefits

**Chapter Title:** Fringe benefits  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles  
**POV:** Broyles  
**Genres:** Angst.  
**Spoilers:** Takes place the morning after the previous chapter.  
**Warnings:** Dark  
**Word count:** 417

* * *

That your mother is no longer alive to see you like this fills you with self-loathing, because you know it to be worse if she could look into your eyes these days; where was once the son who made her proud, the abyss gazes back.

It's a good thing you don't believe in a nebulous concept like the soul, the temptress in the shower would hold dominion over that as well if it was at all real to you in any way.

Again a bubble of loathing rises like bile to the surface when you remember your mother did believe in the soul eternal, you're positive she'd tell you yours is surely damned for eternity for giving into that succubus. To you there's nothing left but a void where a hole used to be, for now _she_ fills it.

This miasma you call feelings doesn't cloud your mind enough that you don't recognize yourself for what you're becoming, Nina's bitch. She drives the car, uses the company card to pay for the hotel room, takes a little bigger piece of you every time.

It started out as fringe benefits, something more often reserved for friends; you may not know a lot when it comes to her, but friends you were never; a lonely agent finds himself interviewing a ruthless business woman more often than makes sense.

Looking back now you can see even then she was dangerous – why else did you have to ask her questions like that, with increasing frequency. She might have been many things, legit isn't one of them. So even though you were on two sides of the same coin, somewhere along the line she became company to you.

If it wasn't for The Pattern you'd have self-destructed by now, you know this. The sheer strange that are the cases wins from the strange that is your need for her, if barely. You find it poetic, when you look into the mirror you barely recognize yourself. There's a symmetry to it that'll be your eventual undoing.

You know you're fucked if you ever do figure out who or what's behind it all; the job can prop you up a bit now, when it's back to normal... well, that's no match for her at all.

The last time she was the first to call you can no longer remember. You hate yourself, but for some reason can't bring yourself to hate her. Who're you kidding? You've been her bitch since day one.

* * *

Good? Bad? I'll let you be the judge of that.


	3. Dry clean my brain

**Chapter Title:** Dry clean my brain  
**Pairing:** Shoyles, implied Oliver  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles (mention), Peter Bishop, Olivia Dunham  
**POV:** Olivia Dunham  
**Genres:** Hurt/Comfort/Humor  
**Spoilers:** None, really. Can take place any time, any place.  
**Warnings:** Weird  
**Word count:** drabble

Author's note: I wanted to do a bit lighter piece in this series. Shoyles doesn't lend itself to fluff, this came out instead.

* * *

When Liv's cellphone died on her, she swiped Broyles', not her best move in retrospect. Wanting to call Peter an hour later to see if he fancied some take-out, she held number 1.

Seconds later a voice she hadn't expected answered her, _"Nina's House of Illicit Pleasures, I was wondering when you'd call again, Broiley."_

"Ehhh, ewww?"

_"Agent Dunham, mind telling me why you have Broyles' phone?"_

"Mind telling me why you run a brothel and why Broyles would frequent it? Actually, never mind... my dreams are disturbed enough as they are."

_"Prude. That's how I paid my way through college if you must know."_

"Really?"

_"No, nor do I run a brothel. That's just how I answer the phone when Phillip calls, it's a running gag."_

One thing was certain, she'd totally lost her appetite. "You got the gag part, alright, and I really have to run. Right now, I have this overwhelming need to dry clean my brain."

She flipped the phone shut, opened it again and dialed Peter, manually this time. "Can you come hold back my hair? I really need to puke."

"_You're calling me from Broyles' phone, needing to puke; I take it you used the speed dial. I would've told you, but I didn't want to scar you for life."_

* * *

_Ewe?_


	4. By the choke chain

**Chapter Title:** By the choke chain  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles (mention)  
**POV:** Omni  
**Genres:** Romance  
**Spoilers:** Takes place at the same time as chapter 2, adjacent room  
**Warnings:** Weird  
**Word count:** 443

For my homie Lo, as promised.

* * *

As Phillip Broyles was contemplating his life and fortune – or lack thereof – Nina Sharp got her shower on; wet, steamy, fragrant, it reminded her of the earlier activities in the room adjacent with her knight in shining standard issue DHS body armor.

Okay, that last image was hyperbole, except of course in her many varied and colorful dreams. The first time they'd actually gone for it – all those many years ago – she found that this federal agent with his strong interview skills had many other oral talents, the least of which was not his being a rather cunning linguist. One serious tongue lashing later, she was sold. That he played the tenor sax – one of his many secrets – and had the nimble fingers and dexterity it came with was a nice bonus.

That their bit on side was increasingly more important to her than her job wasn't something she was about to admit to him, he held enough power over her as it was; had she been a Wiccan, she'd confess he knew her Truename, along with the leverage that gave him.

And so, letting her feelings wash over her much as the tepid stream, it was that she concluded that she was dangerously close to revealing to her Broiley just how much he meant to her; if not for his steady – and yet steadily growing – need to see her, and the call he'd make because of it, she was certain she'd have called him later that day for the same reasons.

By this time she knew him well enough to make a reasonably accurate estimation telling her the feeling was mutual.

"Oh, Phillip..." she cooed, "come help me in here?"

"Yeah right," he called back, "and get stuck with the bill when your arm short circuits, I don't think so."

Although he couldn't see it, he could tell she was pouting. "You know it's waterproof, Broiley; don't be a spoil sport, you know how much I detest that."

"What you gonna do about it, revoke my booty call privileges?" he replied, entering the shower booth behind her, marking her as his own with a swift bite without thinking through exactly what that meant. He'd thought enough for one night.

"I might..."

"Let's face it, Nina _dah-ling_, if there's one thing we're both good at, it's holding the other by the choke chain."

Sharp spluttered in indignation to cover up the dread settling in the pit of her stomach. Phillip knowing he was her addictive antidrug had never been part of the plan. "_There's no way this can end well." _She thought, hoping to be proven wrong for once in her life.

_

* * *

  
_

I think this is as close to fluff as is demonically possible with Shoyles. What do you think?


	5. SWAT Suit Up!

**Chapter Title:** SWAT Suit Up!  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles  
**POV:** Broyles  
**Genres:** Action  
**Spoilers:** Minor reference to chapters 2& 3  
**Warnings:** Weirder  
**Word count:** 300-something

* * *

I tried to fight it as long as possible, always did, and always the urge won. Speed dial number one. _Her._ The first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have one, they say. These gurus had obviously never met the likes of one Nina K. Sharp, vice president of Massive Dynamic. If they had, they wouldn't be spouting platitudes like that, damn them and their self-help books all the way to Tartarus.

As it is, Elysium for me comes in the form of a redhead; an Elysium sharing an expensive hotel room with the very same Tartarus. These being fictional concepts to me – staunch atheist and scientific mind as I am – does nothing to dissuade me from appreciating the poetry of Greek mythology.

The phone rings once, twice, is picked up.

"_Nina's House of Illicit Pleasures. This is a call to a premium number and will be charged at $1.90 a minute... please hold for our switchboard."_

Say what now?! A switchboard on a cellphone? Premium rates!? Has she lost her goat-worshiping, virgin-sacrificing mind?

"_For instant gratification, press 1."_

Okay, sounds like a direct line if anything. I press 1.

"_Broiley, Broiley, patience is a virtue, even for sinners. There's no such thing as instant gratification, not without an electrode stuck in your pleasure center. If you want to schedule such surgery, please contact Massive Dynamic at 0900-MSSVDYN, or text SHARP ON to NINA and we'll get back to you."_

_* click *_

Then she had the nerve to have this switchboard of hers disconnect me like this as well?! There's only one right answer to this...

This calls for a raid on her offices. SWAT Suit Up!

-=-=-=-

The light streaming to the window's a total pain, yet it fades some when I see Nina fell asleep next to me, a first.

One thing is certain, no watching sitcoms waiting for her to arrive, next time. SWAT Suit Up, indeed.

_

* * *

_  
Okay then... I srsly hope the next one will be longer again, but there's no arguing against the muse.


	6. Wherefore art thou, Broiley?

**Chapter Title:** Wherefore art thou, Broiley?  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles  
**POV:** Broyles  
**Genres:** Oh boy, Humor  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Warnings:** Poor Broiley  
**Word count:** very few... funny ones, though

**Author's note:** Collab effort with Lo-Sequence (a.k.a. Lolita Tides)

-=-=-=-

A new window popped up, and it didn't need looking at for me to know what that meant. It only ever meant one thing: Nina interrupting my work.

**NanoNina:** Broiley, oh Broiley? Wherefore art thou, my unfair Broiley?

**Broiley:** How often do I have to tell you, don't IM me at work! It's monitored, my boss will laugh at me.

**NanoNina:** Crybaby.

I really don't need this today. Of course blocking her from IM doesn't help, she wants to maintain our _inter-office relations_ just the same, never mind her office isn't part of any law enforcement branch.

I tried it once, she texted me on my phone instead.

**NanoNina:** what r u doing rite now?

**Broiley:** wrkn dammit!

**NanoNina:** what r u wrkn on?

**Broiley:** the fr1ng3! srs bznz!

**NanoNina:** wnt2cum play w/ my fr1nge?

**Broiley:** send car?

**NanoNina:** ur2ec

We ended up in her company car, being driven over to _the_ hotel, spending the night in the same room paid for by her company card. It's always the same.

"ur2ec", maybe I am too easy, maybe I'm not. It's not as if _NanoNina_ can resist _Teh Broiley_, "wherefore art thou", indeed!

-=-=-=-

Lock your tray in its upright position.


	7. Lifelike

**Chapter Title:** Lifelike  
**Pairing:** Shoyles  
**Characters:** Nina Sharp, Agent Broyles  
**POV:** Broyles  
**Genres:** Horror? Just kidding.  
**Spoilers:** None, really. Can take place any time, any place.  
**Warnings:** Weird, Character Death?  
**Challenges:** Flashfic Friday!  
**Dedication:** Lolita Tides a.k.a. Captain Lo a.k.a. Lo-Sequence  
**Word count:** 161

* * *

The dream was always the same; it had been the same for over a month now, only minor variations on the same theme. Philip always woke up with cold sweat breaking like a fever.

Nina had passed through a rift in space-time and Broyles had been there to see it close after her, severing part of her bionic arm in the process. The strangely lifelike hand that had caressed him on many occasions now lay on a table somewhere in Doctor Bishop's lab.

He could hardly press Walter and tell him to treat it with the reverence it deserves, lest he give away what Nina really meant to him; what she means to him still.

She's alive on the other side, he knows this. What other side the real question. Is she right now having her arm repaired by William Bell, or is she playing poker with ghosts.

Until he knows, he knows he won't sleep.


End file.
